Destiny
by Kat.Bites
Summary: Katherine returns to her home town of Maykigo which is still recovering from a horrific event...which was apparently caused by her. Based on a dream I had.
1. chapter one

**Chapter One: Ghost Town**

The town wasn't new, just the people in it.  
Right side: ice cream. barber. bookstore.  
Left side: deli, bank, hardware store, and a turnoff to a gravel road that lead to The red bridge. Below the red bridge was the end of the world. Maykigo River ran through the canyon two hundred feet below. Winds tended to blow strongly through the canyon, so maintenance was done on the bridge weekly.

As I drove down Evergreen street, the two blocks that made up the Maykigo central business district, I didn't even have to look to know what storefronts I was passing. But as I did look, the people were unfamiliar. I didn't recognize the children playing by the statues at the library steps. I didn't recognize the men sitting in the window at Daniels' Bar. The car's air conditioning was drying out my throat and lungs, so I pulled into the 24 hour drug store at the end of the road. Mine was the only car parked there, except for a cluster of three cars at the far end of the gravely lot. There was a group of kids who looked to be around my age leaning on and sitting in the cars, talking and blasting music through one of the radios. This was the first moment of seeing familiar faces. There was Lauren, there was Dave, and Matt, and Ryan, and Jessica. I stood on my toes and waved.

"Jess!"

The entire group all turned at once to look at me. There was silence. I bounced on my toes and waved still, looking like an idiot.

"Jessica! Lauren! Hey!" I called again. They all looked at each other, then back at me, then slowly retreated into their cars. I could feel my smile disappear. Was I wrong? That WAS Jessica...we were friends, before I left. Did she not recognize me? Did I mistake someone else for her? The kids had disappeared, but none of the cars left the lot.

What do I need? Deodorant...new toothbrush...tampons...hairbrush...some eyeliner...all the things that either I didn't need or were provided for me in sterile plastic wrap for single use at Saint Martin's. Saint Martin's Teen Psychiatric Hospital: where I spent the last year or so of my life. I wish I knew why. For the first month, I spent two hours a day with a therapist trying to get me to talk about my life and my "demons". He told me that the demons were all I used to talk about. He told me that the demons were the reason I was in Saint Martin's instead of somewhere worse. The only problem was that I had no idea what he was talking about. When I told him this, Doctor Bailey brought in Doctor Westbrooke. For two months, they berated me for four hours a day, trying to make me see these demons that I allegedly had created. They tried to get me to remember a boy named Jake Rollins. If I wasn't crazy when I was placed in Saint Martin's, I was crazy by the time they started pumping me full of drugs during month three. Every morning I was given four pills. Every morning I demanded to know what I was taking. Every morning they wouldn't answer me. I could ask the nurses in white almost anything and they would answer, but they weren't allowed to tell me what I was taking.

During therapy, Doctor Bailey and Doctor Westbrooke gave me more drugs, but these were injected. I was on an IV drip for every other session. The drugs made it hard to see and hard to talk. I couldn't feel the chair I was sitting in. My vision was dark around the edges. Whatever they were giving me, it caused me to say things that I'm still not aware of. But whatever I said, it caused the court to let me out on my eighteenth birthday. Something hit the floor. There was gasp, then a swear. I looked up to lock eyes with a boy standing at the end of the aisle. He was bent over, picking up the bag of pink razors that he'd knocked off of the shelf. He looked scared, nervous. He didn't move. I put the stick of deodorant I'd been holding into my basket.

"Hi," I said. He pressed his lips together and didn't take his eyes off of mine. He still hadn't even stood all the way back up. Looking at this boy, I was confused by the feeling that came over me. It was wonderful. My stomach was full of butterflies and I wanted to smile at him. Maybe walk over and take his hand. But by the look on his face, if I'd taken a step towards him he probably would have had a heart attack. He straightened himself out, standing up to his full height. He was very tall. I'm five foot-nine, and he was at least five or six inches taller than me. I could tell from halfway down the aisle. He was skinny as a rail, but with noticeably broad shoulders. Why did I want to wrap my arms around those shoulders?

"Are you okay?" I asked. He looked at me. He was confused, and just a little scared. It was obvious.

"Katherine?" His voice was quiet but he had undoubtedly spoken my name.

"Yeah, do I know you?" My question seemed to bite him. Something changed in his eyes.

"You...um. I...sorry. I'm sorry." And he ran. I'm not even kidding you. He took off like a bullet from a gun right out of the store. Suddenly I was back to being the only customer in the store. I acknowledged how bizarre what had just happened was, but for some reason I couldn't shake the feeling of euphoria running through me. My arms were tingling, my fingers were numb. My face felt hot and my lips were tilted up in a smile. I couldn't remember the last time I had smiled.


	2. chapter two

**Chapter Two - Tragic Enough  
**

"Jake came to visit again, Katherine."

"I don't know who Jake is."

"You know, I think he'd be really disappointed to hear you say that." Doctor Bailey sat down. "We keep trying to explain to him that he's not allowed to see you. You're not allowed to see him. But he just keeps asking for Katie. 'I wanna see Katie. What are you doing to Katie?' He seems pretty intent on seeing to you."

"If he was so into me, he'd know I hate being called Katie."

"Well, we don't really understand it either. He's relentless. But he's backing off. He was coming to the facility twice a day at first. Now we're down to twice a week."

"Why does someone who I don't even know wanna see me so badly?"

Doctor Bailey just stared. He never had an answer.

There are times when I believe Jake Rollins is real. I want to believe he's a real person because I don't want to believe that Doctor Bailey and Doctor Westbrooke would spend so much time trying to plant false memories thinking they would help me, when a full year should have convinced them they did not. After all this time though, I totally created a Jake in my head. Maybe it was how fed up I got with hearing his name, but I fathomed a Jake who was short, pudgy, and covered in pimples. I hated hearing the name, and I assumed he'd be someone I'd hate to see in person.

Maykigo is a deceptive name for a town. To me it evokes tropical imagery. "Maykigo" feels like it needs to be followed with "Bay". I imagine sand, palm trees, and warm beachy breezes. But I've never seen a palm tree in my life, and the biggest body of water I ever set foot in is Lake Superior, on a trip I took with my parents when I was seven. I barely remember that now, though. I just remember screaming about how cold it was, and wanting to put my shoes back on.

The memory of the Lake Superior trip brought me back to the realization I've been avoiding for months. My thoughts coincided with my pickup making a wide left up the winding gravel road to the Leighton estate. I could barely see the three-story manor at the top of the hill. It was a little after seven, and November, so the sun was already just a distant memory of the day. No one was in the house to turn on the lamps that illuminated the road before me, and I assumed that they wouldn't work, even if someone was. My headlights only helped me so much, so I drove on instinct. It failed me a few times; the car bumped and I heard screeching of metal on metal as I went over three of the road-lamps. They wouldn't do any damage to my blue pickup truck. They were little lamps, only a foot or so off of the ground. Nothing I couldn't fix in the morning. I wondered how many of the lights inside the house would work. Would I be in the dark all night? Would I be relying on instinct all night? Where are the stairs, where's the bathroom, there I'd be, feeling around like a blind person in the home I'd grown up in.

"Hey there, Katherine." Jamie always had a smile on. She was one of the younger nurses at Saint Martin's. No older than twenty five. Most of the other nurses were in their forties, at least. Jamie had no friends among the nursing staff. Her young face, her slender, curvy body, her cheerful moods around the other patients, it sparked jealousy among the old bags she called colleagues. Is that even the right word? "Colleagues" sounds wrong for fellow nurses in a teens' mental institution. I'll never know if Jamie was just very good at faking it, or if she genuinely felt for me and my situation. Either way, I didn't mind Jamie. She was sweet, but she never gave me any bullshit. She was open with me, probably more than she was allowed to be. But she still drew the line and clammed up about certain subjects - one of them obviously being Jake Rollins.

Jamie came into my room that day with a look on her face that I'll never be able to shake. She was trying so, so hard not to show any emotion, but from the second I saw her eyes, I knew I was about to get a shock. It was like she spoiled her own surprise. The blow she gave me was lessened only by knowing that something terrible was about to come out of her mouth. She sat down at the foot of my bed. It was 5:00pm on August 13th. It was a Thursday. Thursday meant therapy with Doctor Bailey at 2:30pm, but no one had come to get me that day. The one thing I never gave in to was walking myself down to Doctor Bailey or Doctor Westbrooke's office. All of the patients were given a calendar, and a clock, and their schedule. They had the freedom to take themselves down to sessions. I refused. I insisted on being retrieved. Don't ask me why. I think I just wanted to be difficult. No one came to get me for my 2:30pm therapy session with Doctor Bailey, and that was my first indication that something was wrong. It was too much to hope that maybe I had been allowed to simply skip the session. There was a reason why my attendance on that particular Thursday was not enforced.

"Katherine, we got a call today…and to be honest, I don't know how to tell you this."

"Does whatever you're gonna tell me have to do with my missed session today?"

She nodded. "Sort of. It's uh…why we didn't call you down today."

"What's going on? Don't tell me, they're shortening my sentence? C'mon Jamie, O was just starting to like it here."

"Sometimes I wish I had your sense of humor, Kat. But we need to talk."

"Okay…seriously Jamie, what's going on? You look like you've seen a ghost or something." It was true. Jamie's expression was hard to describe. Her features were mostly frozen. She wasn't blinking much. Really the only thing moving was her mouth. She sat straight up, with her hands twisted in her lap. I was used to her sitting more informally. She had a bit of a slouch, but would hide it by leaning back, supported by her palms. Now she seemed uncomfortable, like she didn't know how to approach me.

"Katherine, your mom and dad were in an accident today during the thunderstorm. They spun out on the highway and…" I kind of knew how the story was going to end. It could've ended with "they're both critical but stable". It could've ended with "They killed the guy they hit". But I knew how it was going to end. Because of this knowledge, I barely heard things like "mom died on impact" and "dad went into brief coma".

As if things weren't tragic enough. As if I wasn't already on a court-mandated stay in a mental facility without any recollection of what I'd done. As if I was okay with never having a single visitor - including my parents. No, my life wasn't screwed up enough. My parents had to die, too. I wonder sometimes how I'm even supposed to feel. The Wisconsin Juvenile Court locked me up, and for ten months months not a single friend came to see me. Neither did either parent. The only visitor I had was Jake Rollins, and I had no idea who he was; and apparently I wasn't allowed to see him (if he even existed) anyway.

I just wish someone could explain to me how things can get that fucked up for one single person. Why does it seem like all the tragedies and hardships and burdens of the world all get shoved into the lives of select few? I'm not trying to say things always sucked. I know I had it good. I had parents who loved me, despite the fact that I was the neediest, fussiest kid. I had friends. I had a three-story manor on a twenty-acre estate. It was almost guaranteed that I'd never go wanting for material things or companionship. Then something decided to rip it all away. I still don't understand.

I must have disappointed them. I must have made Ed and Serena Leighton hate their only child enough to not visit her even once at Saint Martin's. It would be easier if this wasn't just an assumption. This would be easier if I knew what I'd done. Whatever I'd done had made them not want to see me; but the love they had for me made them make sure that I was taken care of. My parents owned the Leighton estate and the manor that resided on it mortgage free. The land was bought and built on by my great-great-grandfather, Donald Leighton. The home and its land was passed down through generations, and this tradition was thankfully not deterred by a daughter gone psychologically astray. My mom and dad left me the Leighton estate, including Leighton Manor and "everything in it". That's what the will said: "everything in it".

Three months (almost to the day) after my parents died, I turned eighteen. A combination of my decent behavior at Saint Martins and my new "situation" prompted the court to cut my sentence short. I had no one left to help me once I got out, and my fresh start needed to begin ASAP. So on November 20th, they brought me my blue Chevy Tahoe and my release papers and wished me luck. They showed me the will and asked me if I knew the way home from the facility. They asked me if I had any "questions" regarding the accident and regarding my release. I didn't even bother asking about Jake Rollins. Fourteen months had taught me that asking about him was just a waste of my time. I got in my car, threw my backpack on the seat, and drove the hell away.


	3. chapter three

**Chapter Three - Left Waiting**

Give some thought to what would happen to a house if it were left alone, unoccupied for three months. Would time freeze inside, with nothing but dust disturbing the atmosphere? Or would it be destroyed in an epic display of disrespect towards a well respected local family? Unfortunately, the latter was what I discovered as I walked up the front steps. It looked like someone had tried (and failed) to kick the front door in. The wood's paint was chipped and shards were missing from the middle of the door. The window to the left of the door was smashed in. I reached out to open the door, but it was locked. Well, obviously.

"What the fuck do they expect me to do without the keys?" I shouted, kicking the door futilely. How hilarious - the house is mine, along with everything in it, if I can just get inside. I just stood on the dark porch and rubbed my temples. It wouldn't be difficult to climb in through the smashed window; the glass was almost completely removed. It just seemed like such a joke to have to break into my own house. After a three hour drive from Saint Martin's, a strange and cold return to Maykigo, and that incident with the boy in the drugstore, I'd had enough for the day.

"This blows." With those two words summing up my experiences thus far as a free woman, I lifted one leg through the window frame, easing my upper body past the tiny glass shards still jutting out of the wood. Once I'd successfully maneuvered myself over the threshold, I looked around and let my eyes adjust to the even deeper darkness. I slid my hand along the wall towards the door and found the light switch. Just for kicks, I flicked it on. I cursed loudly as bright and unexpected light flooded the front room. Okay, so we had electricity somehow. Still blind, I turned towards the window and flicked the switch next to the first one. The tiny lamps that lined the gravel driveway all lit up, save for the three that I'd driven over. Those I could now see lying on the ground. I wasn't expecting power. Clearly no one was around to pay the electric bills. Maybe there was just a mistake and the electric company never shut off our connection to the grid. Surely it won't be long before they realize I'm sapping free electricity. Not that I'm not planning to continue stealing utilities. My job hunt begins in the morning. I blinked and stared out the window until my pupils shrank and the light became bearable, then turned around to look at the room.

My parents really loved Leighton Manor. They put a lot of time and effort into furnishing it, decorating it, and turning it into a dream home for them and their daughter. It was a museum and a home at the same time. The large pieces of artwork, the designer couches, the ornate fireplace, they were beautiful but they were also my play area. I was never shouted at for jumping on the couch - only asked by my mother to remove my shoes. I was never told not to ride my pink Barbie convertible along the hearth - only taught by my father that cars go "vroom vroom" and not "rrrrrrrrrr". In the wintertime, my dad would go and buy sweet smelling firewood. He, my mother, and I would sit around the fire with hot chocolate. My dad would play his acoustic guitar, and my mother would sing. They'd sing "Superstar" by the Carpenters, "You are My Sunshine", and even "Aquarius" from that movie Hair. If I haven't already made it abundantly clear, I had perfect, amazing, incredible, loving parents.

The smell that filled the living room right now was vile and disgusting. I looked at the fireplace - it was full of soot and ashes, along with burnt remnants of branches, newspaper, cigarette butts, and other things that god-knows-who burned when they came here to drink, to party, to fuck their girlfriend. The artwork on the walls was new. I'd go so far as to call it modern-chic. There were pale patches of wall where portraits had once hung. The pieces that remained were drawn upon or torn. The yellow wallpaper was spray painted and had what looked like human feces and even blood smeared upon it as well. How do I even begin to explain people? This was (well, is) somebody's house. Who decided that it was some abandoned wasteland, free to be turned into their playground? And how long did they wait before deciding this?

The smell was truly overpowering, and I was sure that I was going to puke, so I made my way towards the stairs, hoping that maybe the damage was less extreme on the second floor. As I climbed the stairs, there were gouges along the wall, presumably from a large knife. The jagged plaster and ripped wallpaper smiled like teeth and threatened to cut me. The staircase got darker the higher I climbed as the downstairs light faded and failed to alleviate the darkness. There was a switch when I reached the top of the stairs that flooded the hallway with light. The hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up. All five doors to the rooms of the second floor were shut. My stomach tightened. Anything could be behind these doors.

This was the first moment that I'd felt fear since I'd left Saint Martins. Something I'd never had before my time there was fear. The hospital taught me fear. I was never scared of the Boogeyman or monsters under my bed. I was never scared to walk into town alone to meet my friends at Russo's Ice Cream. But for some reason, I was filled with terror at Saint Martins. The only place I could handle being alone was in my room, and I had to have the blinds drawn and the closet door open. I rarely spoke to the other patients, but I always needed them around. In the TV lounge, the cafeteria, I always had to feel the presence of other people. Trips to the bathroom were terrifying. I wet the bed more frequently than a teenage girl will ever admit, because I refused to make the trip down the hallway to the bathroom alone at night. The orderlies thought I was trying to be difficult. I allowed them to think so. I don't know what changed in my soul that turned me from a happy, psychologically-clear child who's biggest fear was spiders into a trembling, anxiety-ridden teen who couldn't walk to the bathroom alone, but whatever it was, I swore I felt it leave me once I walked out the front doors of Saint Martins. Now here it was again: that horrid roller-coaster feeling of your stomach bottoming out, the ice that spreads to your fingertips as adrenaline gets your body ready to fight or fly. My mouth was dry. I couldn't feel my face.

Maybe I stood there for seconds, maybe for hours. Eventually the decision I made was to run down the hallway towards the other staircase. What waited for me up those stairs, I knew I could never fear. I never knew the original purpose of the third story of Leighton Manor, but the purpose it served when I lived there was as my private domain. The third story juts upwards as little more than a turret. It's only three rooms - a modest-sized bedroom, a small bathroom, and a room big enough for my toys and a TV, the room used for when I had friends over. It was private, it was secluded, but if both our bedroom doors were open, I could always hear my mom and dad in their room downstairs, just a shout away. This third story was my haven, and whatever my mind subconsciously feared wouldn't be able to get to me up there. At the top of the stairs, I didn't even flick the lights on, running instead on instinct towards my bedroom door. I could feel something behind me. There was something chasing me up those stairs, but I didn't dare look behind me to see what it was. My imagination filled the image void well enough on its own.

Moonlight shone on the lavender painted walls of my room through an open window. The white mesh curtain billowed in the night breeze like a ghost, but that was the only odd or eerie thing about the room. I breathed in, then out, and felt the choking fear in my throat dissipate. The silence in here was heavy, heavier maybe than in the rest of the house. I felt like the wind should've been making noise, a whisper or a quiet moan, but there was nothing. I imagine that it was stifled by the thick coating of dust that had settled on everything in sight. Had nothing been touched since I'd been away? I looked all around, and everything had that tint of grey indicating it hadn't been touched in ages. The ceiling was strung with spiderwebs, some occupied, some not. It sent a momentary shiver up my spine, but spiders don't really scare me. They could be dealt with later. Even on the floor, I noticed that I was tracking very slight footprints through the dust. I don't think my parents had so much opened my bedroom door since I'd been gone, and I really don't know how I feel about that.

With the fear gone, the exhaustion which my mind had been pushing off finally hit me. I slid my shoes off and walked over to my bed. A valiant effort was made to get rid of all the dust before I crawled beneath the covers. I left the window open, and the autumn wind was just slight enough to make me the perfect temperature under my comforter. I killed time waiting for sleep to find me by watching a spider crawl across the ceiling. Their movements fascinate me; the coordination of the eight legs in perfect rhythm - we joke about clumsy people having "two left feet", well, try having four. When you watch a spider walk, the way it moves is not quite fluid, it almost looks like a really fast stop motion film. At least, that's how they look when they're not chasing something. When a spider is on the hunt, or fears for its life, blink and it's gone. They run, they jump, they practically fly from place to place. But this particular spider was just meandering around the ceiling. He started in the corner directly over my head, then followed the wall molding all the way across to my window, then back towards me, and then to the right towards my door. I watched the brown spot on the ceiling get smaller and smaller as it inched towards my door, and my eyes got sleepy as they turned in their sockets. My eyes came to rest on the cream colored hallway wall just beyond my door, but something dark then came into my peripheral.

I was on my feet faster than any threatened spider. The calmness that I felt just seconds ago was gone, replaced by ice cold fear. My face and extremities tingled. My ears rang. Looking back, this night is the reason why I'm so observant. I was detail-oriented before, but not like I have been since this night. Nowadays I check behind every corner, I observe every surface, because I'm terrified of ever getting a shock like this again.

When I had run upstairs in search of safety, when I hadn't turned the hall light on, when I'd blindly flung open my bedroom door, I had paid no attention to the door itself. But I was damn sure paying attention now. I was wrong; someone had been up here. The third floor had been touched by someone. But this didn't look like stupid senseless graffiti. This had malice. I didn't understand why I felt this way, but as I looked at these words, I felt evil behind them. Painted on my door was a giant X, and written below it was "She'll get you too".

I didn't understand. Who was "she"? Who did "she" get, and who was the warning meant for? As my brain began telling myself that it was nothing, just paint on a wall, the fear began to settle in my stomach to allow room for shear agony. For the first time since I checked into Saint Martin's, I felt like I was going to cry. Either I was going to cry, or I was going to pass out right there on the floor. I feared that one would shortly follow the other, so I did the only thing I could think of; I went back down to the second level and walked cautiously into my parents room. After looking around - checking every wall and door surface, looking in the closets and behind the furniture - I decided it was safe for me to curl up in the perfectly-made bed. I smelled my mom and dad. I smelled the ghosts on their pillows. It unnerved me more than it comforted me, but I still allowed myself to shut my eyes. The tears never came, and sleep overtook me in minutes. None of that "lay there forever and wait for sleep to come" bullshit. My lids closed, and that's all I remember.


	4. the soundtrack updated: november 9, 2010

As some of my old readers may know, I like to make soundtracks to stories that I'm writing. Songs that fit certain moods, certain themes, certain lyrics, etc. Considering I'm hoping this story will be a long one, I didn't restrict myself to a certain number of tracks. But in case anyone is looking for mood music for reading, here it is. it's not in order of the story's progression or anything. just alphabetical by artist. Anyone who actually pays attention to this list and knows some of the songs is actually privy to literal spoiler alerts.

1. Miss Murder - AFI  
2. My Mind is A Box (Crispy Version) - The Alphabet  
3. Secret Crowds - Angels and Airwaves  
4. Heartbeat - Annie  
5. Car Underwater - Armor for Sleep  
6. Slow Burn - Atreyu  
7. Economical Animal Superstar - Aural Vampire  
8. Beast and the Harlot - Avenged Sevenfold  
9. Innocence - Avril Lavigne  
10. Tortures of The Damned - Bayside

11. To Die For - The Birthday Massacre  
12. In The Dark - The Birthday Massacre  
13. Sooner or Later - Breaking Benjamin  
14. First Day of My Life - Bright Eyes  
15. Superstar - The Carpenters  
16. Hell's Bells - Cary Ann Hearst  
17. The Clincher - Chevelle  
18. The Difference Between Medicine and Poison Is In The Dose - Circa Survive  
19. Black Sheep - The Clash at Demonhead (yes, the version from Scott Pilgrim vs The World, not the Metric version)  
20. Werewolf - CocoRosie

21. Ten Speed (Of God's Blood and Burial) - Coheed and Cambria  
22. Today We Are All Demons (Beneath the Stairs remix) - Combichrist  
23. Air Painter - CSS  
24. ..There. - Dearestazazel  
25. All My Friends Are In Love With Satan - Dearestazazel  
26. Making The Most - Dommin  
27. The Killing Moon - Echo & The Bunnymen  
28. Honorable Mention - Fall Out Boy  
29. Golden - Fall Out Boy  
30. What It Is To Burn - Finch

31. The Fallen - Franz Ferdinand  
32. Digging My Own Grave - Glass Midnight  
33. Cannibal Girl - Head Automatica  
34. Patent Pending - Heavens  
35. Dying Song - HIM  
36. Wicked Game - HIM  
37. A Dark Congregation - The Hush Sound  
38. Saddest Story Never Told - I Am Ghost  
39. Oh My God - Ida Maria  
40. Night Time - Imagica

41. Not Healthy - JD Natasha  
42. Assassinate Me - Jesus on Ecstasy  
43. Work - Jimmy Eat World  
44. Pain - Jimmy Eat World  
45. Maestro - Julien K  
46. Teenage Dream - Katy Perry  
47. Goodbye - Ke$ha  
48. Monster - Lady Gaga  
49. I Am Going To Kill The President Of The United States Of America - LeATHERMOUTH  
50. Red Rose Suicide - Malice in Wonderland

51. Monsters - Matchbook Romance  
52. I Don't Mind If You Forget Me - Morrissey  
53. Time Turned Fragile - Motion City Soundtrack  
54. My Way Home Is Through You - My Chemical Romance  
55. I Don't Love You - My Chemical Romance  
56. Heaven Help You - My Chemical Romance  
57. Outrageous - Oingo Boingo  
58. Insanity - Oingo Boingo  
59. Stay - Oingo Boingo  
60. Make Me Wanna Die - The Pretty Reckless

61. Lighten Up Francis (JLE Dub Mix) - Puscifer  
62. Get Wel Soon - Reggie & The Full Effect  
63. What The Hell Is Stipulation - Reggie & The Full Effect  
64. Cupid Shoot Me - Remi Nicole  
65. 3rd Measurement In C (Piano Version) - Saosin  
66. A Walk Through Hell - Say Anything  
67. The Plastic Surgery Hall Of Fame - Schoolyard Heroes  
68. Screaming "Theater" In A Crowded Fire - Schoolyard Heroes  
69. Remedy - Seether  
70. Sick Or Sake (Fifty For A Twenty) - Senses Fail

71. Still Searching - Senses Fail  
72. Lost Angels - September Mourning  
73. How Soon Is Now? - The Smiths  
74. Queen of Apology (Patrick Stump Remix) - The Sounds  
75. Set The Fire To The Third Bar - Snow Patrol  
76. All Over You - The Spill Canvas  
77. Speak of The Devil - Sum 41  
78. Error Operator - Taking Back Sunday  
79. Back In Your Head - Tegan & Sara  
80. Animal I Have Become - Three Days Grace

81. Blood On My Hands - The Used  
82. Sold My Soul - The Used  
83. Meant To Die - The Used  
84. Metro - The Vincent Black Shadow  
85. Broken - The Vincent Black Shadow  
86. This Road Is Going Nowhere - The Vincent Black Shadow  
87. Burn - We Are The Fallen  
88. I Will Stay - We Are The Fallen  
89. St. John - We Are The Fallen  
90. I'm Only Human Sometimes - William Control

91. Attack - 30 Seconds To Mars  
92. E.T. - Katy Perry


	5. chapter four

**Chapter 4 - Day Terrors**

As far as nightmares go, this one wasn't so bad. I've gotten almost too used to waking up in a cold sweat, pulling the covers up in a panic to protect myself from the evils hiding in the darkness. Knowing that there's nothing there is one thing, convincing myself is quite another. The simpler and more realistic the nightmare, the harder it is to shrug off. You've all had one like it - you're in a very familiar, simple scene, everything is going fine, and then suddenly something changes. Something so sudden and awful that you feel it in the pit of your stomach even though you're asleep. Suddenly, your best friend is picking at her eyeballs, or tiles of the sidewalk are disintegrating beneath your feet, revealing century-deep drops into oblivion. You know you're asleep. You know you're asleep, but you scream and you try to stop it. Suddenly your life is in immediate danger. Whatever is happening is about to do so much more than kill you, but decimate you in the most horrible way you can't even imagine. And only when the unseen, incomprehensible horror is literally clutching at your throat can you rip yourself from the dream and wake up. But it's there, isn't it? Whatever it was, it was clutching you tightly enough to follow you back into the real world- Freddy Krueger style.

Obviously I've seen too many horror movies.

But I know that you know what I mean.

I know you've been where I am right now - catching your breath in the fetal position, aware of every inch of your shaking body, gazing out of focus at the blankets over your face.

Through the blankets, I could see sunshine. Wouldn't you know it, I slept sound through the entire night. But it wasn't the nightmare that woke me up. I was now conscious of a loud and urgent knocking on my front door. Knocking meant people. But who? In my head, I made a list of everyone who would know I was back in Maykigo. There were those kids in the drugstore parking lot. That was it. Unless ConEd was here to enquire about how electricity was working in a house that had been unoccupied for months. Or maybe word got out that I might be back. That someone might have discovered the awful works of "art" committed around the house. Maybe the vandals had come to find out, disguised as concerned citizens. If I just stayed in the bed, would they leave? Or would they come bursting in and find me here - hiding. An eighteen year old scared of her front door in broad daylight? Socially laughable.

Knock knock.

Knock knock knock knock knock.

"KATHERINE!"

It was a girl's voice.

"Katherine I KNOW you're inside." Knock. Bang. "Open the door, come on!"

Her voice sounded almost familiar. From where, I don't know. But I know it didn't sound dangerous.

"Kat, please! Open up!"

I didn't run to the door, but I suddenly really wanted to talk to this girl. I decided the voice was friendly, and who was I to say no to a friend right now?

"Jesus Christ, Katherine," Knock knock. " I did not walk all the way up your fucking driveway for you to ignore me." Knock. Bang. Knock. "Are you in there or- oh!" Her sentence was cut off by me opening the door.

"Ashleigh?" I knew her, without a doubt.

"Kat!" She attacked me with a hug. And by "attacked", I literally mean she almost knocked me over. A surprising feat for such a tiny girl. But she pulled back quickly and looked me up and down. "Oh my God, look at you. Oh my God, what happened in here?" She caught sight of the room behind me and ran inside. "Holy shit dude. What happened?" I shrugged.

"What time is it?"

"Like ten thirty."

"I've only been here for like eighteen hours, so I'm the wrong person to ask."

"Yeah...I talked to Jessica after she saw you yesterday."

"What the hell was her problem? I saw her in the Hallman's parking lot and she flat-out ignored me." Ashleigh raised an eyebrow at me.

"Are you surprised?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" I remember Ashleigh's green eyes. Literal X-rays that gave her almost super-human perception of people's emotions and motivations. It was one of the reasons we were friends. I'm a horrible judge of character. And she was always saving me from bullshit.

"Well...after what happened you can't exactly expect her to be excited to see you."

"Why the hell not, Ashleigh? What did I ever do to her?" I didn't like being on the receiving end of her X-rays. She was scanning my face. She was looking for any sign of a bluff or lie. I wasn't lying, so she found nothing.

"You don't remember, do you?"

"REMEMBER WHAT?" I yell when I'm frustrated. Even just a tiny bit. It keeps me from crossing over into being angry. Ashleigh jumped, surprised by my decibel increase, but just shook her head.

"Forget it. Don't worry about it. I'm not concerned about Jessica Haber right now." She paused, looking around the ruined living room, and then looking me up and down again. "You look like hell."

"Thanks."

"No, seriously dude. What did they do to you in that place? Starve you? Keep you in a cave?"

I refused two out of the three square meals provided daily at Saint Martin's. Some days, I refused to eat at all. I attacked any nurse who tried to make me go outside for some sunshine. I'd usually bite them, but I gave my fair share of fingernail gashes to the face. I got skinny (frighteningly so) and my cheeks hollowed out. I got so pale that when you held my hand up to the light, you could almost see through it. But there was no point in telling Ashleigh any of that. So I laughed.

"They may as well have starved me. The food there was awful." Ashleigh smiled, but it was fake. She caught my lie and we both knew it.

"Kat, what are we gonna do about your house?"

"We?" Up went her eyebrow again.

"Yes, we. We're friends, aren't we?"

"Well, yeah. But you don't want this job. I'm pretty sure there's shit on the walls." She wrinkled her nose as she noticed what I was referring to.

"Well that explains the smell." We both laughed this time. "Okay. Well, give me your car keys. I'll go get some...supplies. What cleans shit off of walls?"

"Why don't we just go together?" She stared at me for a second, with a hint of confusion in her face.

"You should probably just stay here."

"Does it have anything to do with why Jessica doesn't like me?"

"Yeah." Her slow nod concerned me. It concerned me a lot.

"Okay. The keys are right there on the table. Do you know how to drive stick?" The confusing returned to her face.

"You say that like I've never driven your truck before. Katherine, what is wrong with you?"

"Apparently a lot." There was silent. I could tell she wanted to say something. It suddenly hit me that I may be missing bigger chunks of memory than I was aware of. And suddenly I was terrified. "Hurry back, okay?"

"Okay." She picked up my keys and walked out the door. As the door closed behind her, I had an urge to follow her and beg her not to leave me. What was wrong with me? What had I done? What was missing in my head? I was scared to be alone. I felt like a child again, alone in a massive house with nothing but my thoughts...which were apparently full of holes.

I found a clean patch of wall and glued my back to it, staring at the door until Ashleigh got back.

* * *

Of course she did come back, and in a timely manner that I much appreciated. She brought the whole army, too: Mr. Clean, Lysol, Windex, new mops, endless paper towels, and a dust buster.

"Jeez, you're not fucking around."

"You're gonna live here, are you not? We gotta clean this shit up. And then maybe work on some improved furniture. Your couch is history." Her statement was beyond obvious. White stuffing from the torn and punctured couch cushions littered the room like we were standing on a cloud mass.

"Yeah well, I don't think a new couch is in my budget for right now. So I guess we can just clean. But I feel like this is gonna take days."

"Well, however long it's gonna take, it's half as long as it would take if you were gonna do it by yourself. So let's go." She handed me a mop, picked up a scrub brush, and we worked in silence until the sun went down.


End file.
